BOMs Away 2020 Week 2 - #2: Countryside Cottage

Back in 2010, I finished Vintage Treasures, a quilt made of Joann Block of the Month kits from 2003- 2004 that I purchased on eBay in 2005.

At the time I discovered them, we didn't have a nearby Joann's store – the nearest was about an hour and a half drive away.  I also had not done a BOM at that point but saw many completed ones online so also wanted in on that.   Added to that the fact that the finished quilt was in the red, white and blue color scheme I loved so much, I was so anxious to try this out!

I was only able to get five of the monthly kits and the setting kit at prices that were affordable for me at the time.  So I had to challenge myself to draft the remaining blocks (easy to figure out from the pictures of the finished quilt) and make a trip to that far away Joann's to try to source more of the kit fabrics.

Ultimately I was able to get more of six of the original fabrics and purchased replacements for three of the remaining fabrics while in the store.  The last fabric needed – a medium blue that was used in most of the blocks -- I got from Connecting Threads.

I pieced that BOM over the course of six months, waited (procrastinated?) another six months before finally starting the quilting of it but then didn't finish the quilting until another five months later!  However, it remains to date one of my favorite projects and a solid memory of milestones in my quilting ambitions and abilities.  Ironically, I only put a label on it (despite having made one up when I made the quilt) in 2017 as part of a drive to catch up on my unlabeled quilts.

So back in November, while (again) looking for something on eBay, I happened to see a listing for yet another Joann BOM.  When I had found Vintage Treasures there were literally hundreds of listings for various Joann BOMs because at that time they were still in heavy production.  However, I believe Joann has greatly reduced the number of BOMs they offer each year.  We have a Joann store near us now and while I have seen a few BOM kits there, it looks like they only offer maybe one a year now and very few of them come up in my eBay feed any more (although I admit I haven't really gone looking for them either).  So I was surprised to see this one.

Of course it appealed for all the usual “Squirrel” reasons a “new to me” project is attractive:

• As a Joann's kit, it's a chance to make another one, sort of “working in series”.
• It's made in “my colors”, reflecting my favorite shaded palette.  
• I saw it in the Fall and all the colors in it were Fall colors so that heightened its appeal.  
• Vintage Treasures had been billed as a twin size quilt (although I do use it every year on our queen bed laid crosswise) but this one is billed as 84 x 84 so is darn near queen-size or could be easily made more so with added borders.  
• The center block is a house block and I have plans to start on a series of “House Themed Quilts” this year.  
• These BOM kits are pre-cut so if I got them, I wouldn't have to do any cutting, only sewing.

But of course the best reason is that I found a complete block and setting kit set on sale (or at least at what I considered a good price), this time on Etsy.  Interestingly, there is a lady on eBay who was selling both this BOM and Vintage Treasures as completed and quilted quilts!

When I had looked at the Etsy listing for the block packages I saw something interesting:  it looked like the dark red fabric used for this BOM is the same red fabric I had used to replace one of the fabrics in the original Vintage Treasures kits.

It turned out that was true!  It made sense though:  reviewing the dates on the patterns, I confirmed that the block kits for this “new to me” BOM were from 2004-2005.  I had sourced replacement fabrics for Vintage Treasures in 2005 when this BOM would have been current.

So the first block I worked on for this BOM is the Month 1 Block!

Since this is a pre-cut kit, the only prep I felt I needed to do was to trim the dog ears off the HST pairs with my Triangle Trimmer.

Just one block, pretty big pieces and pre-cut so quick to make up!

So I'm once again glad to be able to link up at Lynette's over at What A Hoot! for BOMS Away Mondays for the second time this week.  Hopefully I can keep checking in each week with what I get done on  the other BOMS I'm planning to work on.

As noted in an update of my last post, I realized after the fact that for the other BOM I worked on this week, I have to make two blocks a month rather than one.  So I've still got one more block to get done this week.  Stay tuned!